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Topic: Which prize would you choose? (Read 6169 times)

Either choice is a free ticket, not only for you, but everyone else involved, too. There are two drawings, and you can only choose to enter one of them. Whichever choice most people make reduces the odds on winning that prize.

I am most interested in the justification behind your choice. Why would you choose the prize you did?

Well, I thought at first "most people will choose the $1000, so I'll get better odds with the $250", but then I realized $250 isn't really that much money, so I might as well go for something that I'd actually appreciate. Does that make me greedy?

Is this supposed to be a logic/behavior problem as people are suggesting? Are you trying to second guess the other entrants and chose the drawing fewest of them would have opted for the increasing you chances of winning?

In that case I'd go for $250, seems likely to me that the vast majority would opt for $1000.

Of course if any more that 20% select the $250 draw then your expected return in a math sense is higher by entering the $1000 draw.

Is this supposed to be a logic/behavior problem as people are suggesting? Are you trying to second guess the other entrants and chose the drawing fewest of them would have opted for the increasing you chances of winning?

That's up to you how you choose to analyze the question. I am just curious as to the reasons people would give for their choices, the thinking behind it. I asked this question to friends and family (offline) and the answers were rather interesting, so I wondered if the answers that DC members would give would be just as interesting.

Typical answer among friends & family

Based on the answers given by friends and family, I have come to the conclusion that most of them are in denial of their own greed. Typical answer was something like "I am not greedy, so I'll take the $250, because most people are greedy and will go for the $1000, giving me a better chance of winning the $250."

The way I see it, anything you do to increase your chances of winning is done out of greed. The only way your decision wouldn't be greed motivated is if you did something like toss a coin to determine which one to enter, or as parkint did and refuse to enter at all.

Someone said that choosing 250$ over 1000$ shows that you are not greedy. But I think that in fact, you are greedy no matter what variant of this 2 you choose. If you consider that a person that goes for 1000$ in this kind of game is greedy, then everyone that plays this kind of game, no matter what the outcome, is greedy.

Also, this is not gambling. You do not pay for entering the draw, from what I understood. And even if you had to pay, it resembles more with lottery than with gambling.

I choose 1000$, but I think that Eoin is right, one has better chances when choosing the 250$ draw.

I clicked a checkbox because someone who started a thread here asked me to participate in a hypothetical something or other.

No survey here will give you info on anything but how we fill out a survey. Even so, if you wanted to get closer to how people would truly respond (or how they think they would respond), you need to set up the survey with more detail and background.

But if you really wanted to know, offer two lotteries, one with a $250 prize, one with $1000, and make it so you can enter one or the other but not both, with no cost to sign up. And see what happens. (It'll only cost $1250, maybe a government grant?)

I never said that anyone that responded to this thread was greedy. I never said entering a contest meant you were greedy. I am not sitting here judging any of you.

What I said was that my friends and family began their reason with "I am not greedy" and then proceeded to choose a prize they thought they had a better chance of winning, based on how they thought other people were greedy and would choose the $1000. I said they were in denial of their own greed by beginning their reasoning with a statement like that and then proceeding to take an action to better their chances of winning a prize.

And by the way, I don't happen to think that greed is always a bad thing. So it's not an insult for me to say that my friends and family have greedy tenancies. I believe we all do. It's part of being human. I know where my own are and I am not in denial of that part of myself.

But if you really wanted to know, offer two lotteries, one with a $250 prize, one with $1000, and make it so you can enter one or the other but not both, with no cost to sign up. And see what happens. (It'll only cost $1250, maybe a government grant?)

But what I really want to know is not which prize you would choose, but why. I am more interested in the thought process behind it than the choice itself. Setting up an actual contest would be a mighty expensive way for me to satisfy a passing curiosity.

Why do I want to know? Because I was made an offer like this recently and I know the choice I made and my reasoning for it (I chose the $250 because I am greedy ), and I wondered about everyone else. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing who else entered, what they chose and can't ask them why. And the why is the part I am most curious about.

I'm truly fascinated by the amount of people who would actually choose neither.

Really? I approached this as if it were a real contest. I don’t enter contests as a rule; I have found that in virtually ALL cases the contest runners are looking to get something from me rather than give something away just because. With the usually poor odds of winning it just is not worth it to me.

I'm truly fascinated by the amount of people who would actually choose neither.

Me too! I did not expect that at all.

Yeah that is odd. I've heard of risk adverse, but non-risk adverse?

Not that it would matter in my case. I've earned my share of awards. But won prizes? No. In my entire life I have never won a free anything. Not a single contest, raffle, giveaway, or door prize.

I sometimes suspect the main reason I still occasionally buy a raffle ticket for a worthy cause is to see if this trend will remain unbroken rather than for my stated reason, which is: "to support the cause."

Otherwise, wouldn't I just make the contribution and not take a ticket if that were so?

I chose $1000 before reading the comments.Reasoning was:$1000 is, of course, more tempting, but on anything a bit strange, we tend to shy away to dodge 'the catch'. SO I figured people would do that, and I coud go for the original choice with good odds. Then I voted and found out I would have done my 'opportunity'(since can't say 'done my money') again......